Professor John Child

Professor John Child

Birmingham Law School
Professor of Criminal Law

Contact details

Address
Birmingham Law School
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Professor John Child specialises in criminal law, doctrine and theory, and the relationship between criminal law and neuroscience. John co-authors two leading criminal law textbooks: Simester and Sullivan’s Criminal Law and Smith, Hogan and Ormerod’s Essentials of Criminal Law. John is also the founder and co-Director of the Criminal Law Reform Now Network.

Qualifications

  • PhD, University of Birmingham

Biography

John has been at Birmingham since 2018; becoming a Professor of Criminal Law in 2022. Prior to this, John held posts at Sussex Law School (2013-2018); Oxford Brookes Law School (2010-13); and the Criminal Law Team at the Law Commission for England and Wales (2007-8). John has held visiting positions at Boston University; the University of Birmingham; as well as the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg. John is dyslexic (so please excuse the 'live' spelling), and grew up in a working-class family in Norfolk. 

Teaching

John specialises in Criminal Law, convening and/or teaching crime related modules at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Postgraduate supervision

John is interested in doctoral candidates in criminal law doctrine and theory, comparative criminal law, and/or criminal law and neuroscience.

John's previous successful doctoral students include:
* Rachel Gimson, ‘Captured red handed: the impact of social media on the evolving concepts of the criminal defendant and the presumption of innocence’ - Completed in 2016;
* Stavros Demetriou, 'Anti-Social Behaviour and Civil Preventive Measures: Creating Localised Criminal Codes?' - Completed in 2017;
* Nicholas Sinclair-House, ‘Sentencing Intoxicated Defendants’ - Completed in 2018.


Find out more - our PhD Law  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

John’s research interests centre on criminal law theory, and particularly the internal structuring of offences and defences within the general part, where he has published widely. 

Across a range of criminal law topics, John's research aims to bridge the divide between conceptual debate and doctrinal application; and to demonstrate how a greater theoretical understanding of the law can be translated into an effective counter to the global expansion of criminal proscriptions (ie, inappropriate or over-criminalisation). This includes work challenging whether certain wrongs are deserving of criminalisation (eg, his work on prior-fault; complicity; inchoate offences; etc), as well as defending minimum doctrinal requirements within the law from philosophical critique (eg, his work on the voluntary act requirement). John is regularly engaged in collaborative and interdisciplinary projects that allow him to gain different insights into a legal problem, as well as to produce more robust recommendations for legal reform. See 'Problem Solving in the Criminal Law'.

 

Other activities

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Child, J, Bone, M & Rogers, J (eds) 2024, Criminal Law Reform Now, Volume 2: Proposals and Critique. 1st edn, Bloomsbury Publishing, Oxford. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781509959211

Child, J & Ormerod, D 2023, Smith, Hogan and Ormerod's Essentials of Criminal Law. 5th edn, Oxford University Press. <https://global.oup.com/academic/product/smith-hogan-and-ormerods-essentials-of-criminal-law-9780198873099>

Child, J, Simester, Spencer, Stark & Virgo 2022, Simester and Sullivan’s Criminal Law: Theory and Doctrine. 8th edn, Bloomsbury Publishing. <https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/simester-and-sullivans-criminal-law-9781509964277/>

Article

Child, J 2024, 'Wrong on Many Levels: Understanding Crimes Across and Between Events', Criminal Law Review, vol. 2024, no. 6, pp. 378-395. <https://uk.westlaw.com/Document/I6A90C10011E111EFB7F9B173B855A4CF/View/FullText.html>

Child, J & Hunt, A 2021, 'Beyond the present-fault paradigm: expanding mens rea definitions in the general part', Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqab033

Child, J 2021, 'Knowledge by any other name: Alexander Sarch on wilful ignorance', Jurisprudence, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 236-246. https://doi.org/10.1080/20403313.2021.1930372

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Child, J, Bone, M & Rogers, J 2024, Criminal Law Reform Now in 2024. in M Bone, JJ Child & J Rogers (eds), Criminal Law Reform Now, Volume 2: Proposals and Critique. 1st edn, Bloomsbury Publishing, Oxford, pp. 1-18. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781509959211.0005

Hogg, C & Child, J 2024, Not Guilty by Reasons Other than Insanity. in AP Simester (ed.), Modern Criminal Law: Essays in Honour of GR Sullivan. 1st edn, Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 155–176. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781509956173.ch-007

Child, J & Hunt, A 2023, Inchoate Offences. in Elgar Encyclopedia of Crime and Criminal Justice. Elgar. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781789902990.inchoate.offences

Crombag, H & Child, J 2022, Drugs, Criminaliteit en het Strafrecht. in H Otgaar, M Jelicic & H Merckelbach (eds), Inleiding in de rechtspsychologie. Paris Legal Publishers, pp. 125-148. <https://www.uitgeverijparis.nl/en/product/435/Inleiding-in-de-rechtspsychologie#inhoud>

Child, J, Crombag, H & Fortson, R 2022, Understanding the ‘fault’ in prior-fault intoxication: insights from behavioural neuroscience. in A Reed & M Bohlander (eds), Fault in criminal law: A research companion. 1st edn, Substantive Issues in Criminal Law, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003279181-7

Comment/debate

Child, J 2024, 'The Post Office Scandal: What it is About and What can be Done?', Solicitors' Journal. <https://www.solicitorsjournal.com/sjarticle/the-post-office-scandal-what-it-is-about-and-what-can-be-done>

Commissioned report

Child, J (ed.) 2023, Reforming the Relationship between Sexual Consent, Deception and Mistake: CLRNN3 Report. Criminal Law Reform Now Network. <http://www.clrnn.co.uk/media/1031/clrnn3-deception-report.pdf>

Child, J (ed.) 2021, Computer Misuse Act 1990: CLRNN1: Comparative Report. Criminal Law Reform Now Network. <http://www.clrnn.co.uk/media/1028/clrnn-1a-comparative-report-on-computer-misuse-defences.pdf>

Other contribution

Child, J & Rogers, J 2024, Why the Post Office was able to bring private prosecutions in the Horizon IT scandal. The Conversation . <https://theconversation.com/why-the-post-office-was-able-to-bring-private-prosecutions-in-the-horizon-it-scandal-220959>

View all publications in research portal